Posted on by BWThomas

The happiness of pursuit not the pursuit of happiness gives us a better chance of being happy.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor. Eleanor Roosevelt

The happiness of pursuit not the pursuit of happiness gives us a better chance of being happy. Don’t we find happiness in small moments when we are busy doing something else, especially when we are doing something for others? The more focused our lives are on us and only us the less happiness we are likely to experience.

Of course, I could be completely wrong on this. I look at new mothers who have never had their lives be less about themselves, but they look full of joy. I may be romanticizing motherhood like it needs more romanticizing, but it is what I see now as a grandma, and what I saw when my friends, sisters, and I were in the throes of motherhood.

You don’t become happy by pursuing happiness. You become happy by living a life that means something. Harold S. Kushner

There is no purpose in life like that of motherhood and fatherhood. Raising the next generation is no small thing. This does not mean I think every unhappy young couple should have a baby like that will bring them closer and heal their hurts. It does however bring a new dimension to your life you get no other way.

I listened to Matthew McConaughey talking about how men are never as masculine as when they just become a father. This is when they will get some of their best inspiration about what to do to build a better life for their family.

It is a shame to see young families that can’t get through the struggle and stay together. Once your family fractures you never get to put all the pieces back together again. Yesterday, we went for a lovely walk with our daughter and her four-month-old son, our son and his wife, and my husband and me. On the walk, my husband’s sister called, she was dropping by with her granddaughter that turns nine today. I had pasta sauce in the freezer and invited everyone for an impromptu dinner, which turned out lovely.

I picked up a book and cupcakes for the birthday girl, her grandma is taking her to Wonderland today and she’s excited about that. My grandson’s great grandma came; we had a lovely evening filled with laughter and the warm glow of being together as a family.

Life is about moments and some of the impromptu ones turn out to be the best. I went to bed filled with joy, gratitude, and happiness. Our grandson has brought joy into our lives we didn’t know was missing. On Saturday my husband and I watched him while our daughter and son-in-law went out to dinner for their fourth anniversary. Where has the time gone? I was proud of us that the house was quiet when they got home, their son asleep in his crib.

My daughter feels bad if she comes home from the gym and he’s crying. Tears are part of motherhood, but they dry up quickly when he is back in her arms. We build our lives with the decisions we make, with the actions we take, and we deal with life as it unfolds. We don’t know how life will unfold for any of us. We have to be willing to make the best of the situations we find ourselves in; we will have to revise our plans and goals.

The happiness of pursuit is a quest to fill our lives with a sense of purpose. Is there any pursuit more worthy of pursuit than a happy family? Is there anything that will bring us more joy, especially in our later years when we look back over our lives and think about what we could have done differently? If we have a legacy of happy children and grandchildren building their lives, does it get better than that?

The happiest people do not necessarily have the best things. They simply appreciate the things they have. Warren Buffett

Happiness is not a reward – it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment – it is a result. Robert Green Ingersoll

People with many interests live, not only the longest, but the happiest. George Matthew Allen

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. if you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Todayism versus long-termism. We build the future by the thoughts we think and the actions we take.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The best way to predict the future is to create it. Peter Drucker

Todayism versus Long-termism. I watched a You-tube video with Ari Wallach he is the author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs. Now that is a mission statement! We will become the ancestors of the future, whether we are good ancestors, ones the future is proud to look back on because we left them in a better place, or they wonder how we could make such a mess for them to clean up is yet to be determined.

We have visionaries in our midst, and those that believe the end is near. Thinking the end is near gives us a get-out-of-free card in our own minds, what can we do? Believing we are on the cusp of change, indeed our history is about being on the cusp of change and making things better.

Things have not always gotten better for all people at all times. One of the things we do not have is a common belief in what is to be done, but this is not necessarily a weakness. What if it is a strength and that as we question ideas, question hypotheses, question what will make things better and what will make things worse we will go forward haltingly, slowly, and we will fix what we can fix and learn to live with self-imposed limits to make life sustainable?

What if we harness the ideas of people on different sides of issues? What if we try different ideas to see what works? What is the minimum lifestyle we could live and be happy? What is the maximum lifestyle that could be offered to everyone? What is sustainable not for the next fifty or one hundred years but for the next thousand and ten thousand years?

What if each one of us set out to be the best person we can be and set the next generation up for success? We want the next generation to turn the taps on and get clean water. We want the next generation to be able to live in dignity, freedom from want, and safety. We want the next generation to have wild places to go, and forests to walk in. We want them to be born healthy and live long healthy lives. We want them to breathe fresh air and be able to raise a family in peace and plenty.

We don’t all agree on what it would take for a better future for our children. I do think most people are trying to make things better. Most people have not given up. Some of us have lived such lives of abundance that wanting more for our children might be part of the problem. We grew up with the best of the best. When I grew up being middle class or even less than the middle class was a very comfortable place to be.

The future depends on what we do in the present. Mahatma Gandhi

It isn’t as comfortable even in Canada to be middle class. We will have to find ways to address this because when the largest amount of the populace decides they are getting too small of a piece of the pie bad things happen. We have lots of people stoking the fires of discontent, and others are sounding the horn of the apocalypse. Too many movies focus on the end is near. We are told that our mind can’t tell the difference between visualization and physically doing things. All those movies we watch, aren’t they like visualizing the future?

Life is a relay race, and we were handed a baton we must pass to the next generation. The better we run our race, the stronger the position we leave for the generation we pass the baton to. One of the things we can all do is not think we know what is in other people’s minds, what they are thinking, especially when we think it is something bad. The more grace we give to other people, the more grace we will get back. We all want a better world, or at least we should believe we all want a better world and see how that works for us. One of the things we do when we think the worst of other people is give ourselves a pass for not acting better. We need to hold ourselves to the highest standard we can, we need to expect less of others and more of ourselves and believe if we all do our best, the future is bright.

The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it. Thomas S. Monson

Every thought we think is creating our future. Louise L. Hay

You can’t live in history. You’ve got to build for the future. Ruud Gullit

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books. A special thank you to those that leave a comment on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale from the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Food is the best medicine. We are what we eat, how could we be anything else?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art. Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I’m cleaning out my old art studio in the basement to give to my grandson for his bedroom and I’ve moved my art studio up to my son’s old room. I went through my vegan phase which started September 5, 2015, when I took the three-week vegan challenge my son issued. That challenge which lasted a few years led me to scour book stores for books on plant-based eating. I believe I am healthier and lighter from taking that challenge and eating more plant-based than we did before the challenge, but meat, eggs, and cheese are back on the menu.

My latest food challenge is removing fructose from my diet for two weeks. The idea is to keep the fructose eaten daily to between 25 and 35 grams after the fructose fast is completed. Ironically the best book I’ve found on fructose is called The Sugar Fix by Richard J. Johnson, MD with Timothy Gower and I had it in the basement with the books I am sending to Value Village.

I bought book after book after book on plant-based eating, but how we ate daily was by tweaking our normal meals and replacing meat with beans and starch. Meat replacements are not something I’ve embraced. Whole food, mostly plants is a good way to eat. I have six bags of books that are going back to Value Village which is where I bought most, but not all of them. I am still keeping many books on nutrition, healing, and cookbooks I’ve collected over the years I don’t want to part with. The books I am parting with were stored in the basement at the back of my art room. I’ve brought some books back upstairs over time but the ones that remained hidden in the recesses of the art room didn’t call out to me to keep when I looked through them. I only picked five books I couldn’t part with.

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Gandhi

One of the things I’ve realized about myself is I buy books perhaps thinking that by osmosis everything in those books can be soaked up without actually reading and studying them. My art room is filled with books and if I were proficient at every technique in those books I would be a great artist. If I read all the books of wisdom I own I would be wise.

There are so many books on nutrition telling us to do this and do that. I am finding the way of eating I learned from Mom and Dad on the farm is probably the healthiest way of eating for me. Meat, eggs, potatoes, beans, rice, good bread, home-baked cakes, pies, cookies, lots of vegetables, butter and cheese, not much fruit, no sugar in tea or coffee, and packaged convenience foods kept to a minimum.

We may tweak our diet over our lifetime to keep ourselves as healthy as we can. Food is the best medicine we have to keep ourselves strong, and nothing can take the place of good nutrition. When we pass on healthy eating habits to our children we give them the best start we can.  

Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness. Edward Stanley

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have. Winston Churchill

Don’t allow a love problem or work problem to become an eating problem. Stop trying to stuff your feelings down with food. Karen Salmansohn

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of books click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Forgiveness unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. Break the chains of bitterness and selfishness.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. Lewis B. Smedes

I watched a video on painting and the instructor was painting a face. He toned the canvas to the medium color and then added the darkest darks, followed by the next darkest and the next. He was leaving the lights to paint another day. The painting took shape as he added the darks, and would take even more shape as he added the lights.

If we live our lives in the middle it doesn’t take much to give us a full well-rounded rich life. If we are off too far in the highs or too far in the lows of life, it can be hard to bring our lives into balance.

One of the reasons to bring art into our life is to capture the meaning, the essence of what we are drawing or painting. Sometimes we add meaning by what we add and sometimes we add meaning by what we leave out. We might find we can draw when we can’t write, and sing when we can’t speak. When we find a way to give voice to what is inside of us it deepens our lives and helps us deal with what is going on in our lives.

These may become works of art that someone else enjoys. A song that gets played, art that gets hung, but it is just as useful if it is only for our own healing, for expressing our desires, feelings, emotions, and longings. We may pour our creativity into a garden and serve up love on a plate with the bounty from that garden. Cooking is creative and one of the most useful ways of using our creativity to nurture our bodies and the bodies of those around us.

Is there any more lovely way to spend time with others than over food lovingly prepared? The warm glow of family and friends around us. Happy families are not without their issues, and unhappy families are not without their joy. The best we can do is forgive others as we would like to be forgiven, know even when people hurt us often they didn’t mean to, they weren’t even thinking about us as they did whatever they did we take exception to.

A phone call may go unreturned; someone may say, well I won’t be at dinner if they are. Don’t sit me at the same table as them. We can get bitter and twisted and have a hard time even explaining what all the angst is about.

Wouldn’t it be better to put all that angst and bitterness on a canvas even if one slashes it a few times with a knife and get all the vitriol out of our soul onto the canvas? Carrying around vitriol and bitterness is not good for us; we need to let it go for our sake, not the other person.

Gratitude is the antidote to bitterness and resentment. M.J. Ryan

Instead, perhaps we can give thanks for what we have, for the moments today will present us with that will never come again. Those moments that hurt us, should be over, we should let them go, so we have room in our hearts to create new experiences, memories, and moments. Can we let moments of anger be like the thunder when it is over a bright new day dawns, or are we going to live our lives as if the thunder is forever crashing, and lightning forever ripping up our skies? It is of course our choice how we live our lives. Is our choice, forgiveness, and peace on one hand, or bitterness on the other?

Things happen to people that seem unforgivable, yet some people do forgive and go forward without bitterness. They could be bitter and twisted but they are not, they look for the good in people and situations and make the best of the hand they are dealt. What if becoming bitter and hard-hearted is the worst thing we do to ourselves? We put ourselves in a prison but we could let ourselves out of it any time we choose.

Holding a grudge doesn’t make you strong; it makes you bitter. Forgiving doesn’t make you weak; it sets you free. Unknown

They caused the first wound, but you are causing the rest; this is what not forgiving does. They got it started, but you keep it going. Forgive and let go, or it will eat you alive. You think they made you feel this way, but when you won’t forgive, you are the one inflicting pain on yourself. Bryant McGill

Though I was unaware of it at the time, that simple act of forgiveness was the beginning of an entirely new level of experiencing life for me. Wayne Dyer

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back again and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those who read my books. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If your click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Smile and spread joy, feed your soul with creativity and enjoy the life you have.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. J.R.R. Tolkien

This has been a fun weekend and it was topped off by a chat with my cousin whose husband came out to watch the Blue Jays. She thought he might want to give us a call but he was busy doing what he should do, see the sights of Niagara Falls, the CN tower, and whatever else he could fit in. A friend on Saturday night said her family went on a speed boat ride close to the falls and it was fantastic. Sounds like fun, I’d love to do it.

There are so many things to see and do. We just have to get out and see and do them. Some are expensive but there is a lot to enjoy even on a budget. Are we the type of people to enjoy simple adventures, and the occasional extraordinary ones? Are we looking to get as much fun out of our days as we can? The more we put into life the more we get out of it. The more fun we have with other people the more fun they have with us.

Watching our four-month-old grandson brings home the point you don’t need anything to be happy, and you can have everything and be unhappy. Mostly he is filled with joy and he spreads it wherever he goes. Such is the power of babies. Being able to see the world through a child’s eyes is a gift. It is wonderful to experience things as he experiences them, and this will be one of the great joys as he sees and experiences new things, we will again experience them in a new way.

Babies are like little suns that, in a magical way, bring warmth, happiness, and light into our lives. Unknown

George Bernard Shaw said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” At the end of our chat yesterday my cousin sent a photo of a sunset she painted and on it, she wrote the quote, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. C.S. Lewis. She says putting colors on paper makes her feel real joy and is so much fun. This is what creativity does for us, and it is something that we bring into our lives to feed our souls. We aren’t sitting on the sidelines waiting for…

The more we are able to entertain ourselves with creative pursuits instead of waiting to be entertained the better it is for us. We will have more to share with others, and as we get older we will be less needy and lonely. For many people what we have been through has been very lonely and heartbreaking. But those who have kept creative I bet have fared the best.

We can’t put a smile on anyone’s face but our own, but a smile on our face may help someone else put a smile on theirs, and they in turn may inspire another smile. This is how we can spread joy, one smile at a time.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. H. Jackson Brown Jr

Kids, take such joy in the little things. We should too. Unknown

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. Winston Churchill

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to those that read my books. A special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Celebrating our families, generation to generation. Our families are with us to the end and are our legacy.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one. Anonymous

Yesterday we celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday in a restaurant. As a family, we haven’t been out to a restaurant in a long time. We debated which restaurant to go to but my mother-in-law made the final choice. There were nine of us and our four-month-old grandson. We worried about taking him to the restaurant. But, he was wonderful and our server oohed and aahed over him to the delight of his mother and the rest of us. He’s a beautiful baby but he’s ours and we are just a little biased. Another cute baby showed up at the restaurant with his parents. We had to know how old he was and were told he was six months old. He was also very good while his parents ate their dinner.

It is lovely when we can get together and celebrate milestones. We never know when it might be our last chance to celebrate with someone. We need to take advantage of these special moments in our lives while we can. It’s been a lovely year of celebrating for us. We have one more wedding to attend this fall, our friend’s daughter is getting married.

The circle of life continues and watching our younger generation take their place, getting married, and having babies, lets us know that we as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and society in general have done okay. We have challenges before us, every generation has its challenges, the generations before us will have their challenges but we hope they will meet those challenges and life will continue to improve for most of us.

My mother is not one who longed for the good old days. She and Dad grew up in tough times, the thirties, and then their generation went to war. I look back on the life I’ve been privileged to live. It has been a life of peace and plenty, full of opportunities, but often those opportunities weren’t recognized as opportunities when they presented themselves.

Even though we’ve lived through peace and plenty it doesn’t mean it has been an easy road. What does an easy road look like, and is an easy road what we really want? It seems to me what we’ve thought of as success has been just over the next hill, we’ve never quite attained what we would call success, and I am beginning to think that makes a great life.

The greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories. Unknown

Working toward something more than actually attaining it may be where the real joy in life lies. How would I feel if I’ve written the best blog post I could ever write, written the best book, painted the best picture, or given the best speech? Mom and I were talking the other day and counting in our heads the number of her grandchildren, great and great, great-grandchildren. We came up with forty-seven.

Mom was visited by her great-granddaughter and her husband, son, and daughter. They had a lovely visit and the kids are old enough to remember visiting their great, great grandmother. Many of us don’t remember our grandmothers let alone great, and great, great grandmothers.

I saw a post on Facebook saying we are burying the people who kept families together. This has always been the case and the torch has been thrown to the next generation to keep the family together. We need to take up our responsibilities to keep our families together so that our children and grandchildren will continue this tradition. Many of our families are smaller now, but a couple of generations fill a restaurant, house, or backyard for a celebration. It doesn’t matter where we choose to do our celebration, only that we do.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings. Ann Landers

Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches. Wanda Hope Carter

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books. A special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Counting our blessings. We can be our own life coaches. Our attitude colors our life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Our attitude towards life determines life’s attitude towards us. John Mitchell

This past weekend I moved my art studio from the basement to my son’s old room on the second floor. Moving is a big job even if it is only one room. In my small little room in the basement, I had two drafting tables, numerous bookshelves, and an L-shaped work surface. Now I have a U-shaped work surface, one more bookshelf and I’ll only bring up one drafting table, but it is a monstrosity.

I was thrilled to get this drafting table that moves to different angles easily but now I am painting 12 x 12 paintings for my children’s books and find it easier to do the painting on a flat surface. Do you really need the drafting table my husband asks? He knows it’s his back being put to work to move it. I need it if I paint on larger canvasses. So even if it sits without being used most of the time it will be making its way up the stairs to the new airy, windowed studio.

My husband sits at my new desk looking out the windows. “This should suit you perfectly you can keep an eye on everything.” Is he implying I am nosy? Having windows to look out of, a big comfy chair with one of the quilts Mom made me covering it, and room for a few more books makes me think I am about as happy with my studio as I could be. It isn’t a cool room in summer or a warm room in winter so there is that to deal with but I now have room for my grandson to visit me while I work.

We sat together and read books yesterday. He’s four months today and what a joy it is to be a grandma. Babies are a lot of work but being around him when he smiles, chatters like he’s talking to you, and shows with his whole body he’s happy to see you are truly wonderful. What a blessing to be a grandma and it is a blessing to have a grandma. He has two grandmas, two great grandmas, and two grandpas. On Sunday we will take one great grandma out for her 83rd birthday, and in September we are planning a trip to see his other great grandma (my mom) who will turn 98 this year. I just saw a picture of Mom with two of her great, great grandchildren that visited her this summer. Five generations are alive and healthy, we are truly blessed.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde

Our attitude colors our lives, and we may not realize that we have more control of our attitude than we think. I watched a Ted Talk the other night while putting my new studio together. This young man is now a history teacher and found out his favorite teacher was retiring. He went to see him and the teacher recognized him instantly, gave him a big hug, and then said, “I’m surprised to see you still alive. You were the angriest grade six student I taught.”

This surprised the young man who acknowledged he’d been really angry, he never told us what was going on in his life then, but he said his father was listening to motivational tapes. His father was choosing his attitude, and this young man came around to believe that he could do that too. At the time he wished his father would turn off those tapes, but now he understands it was his father’s way of choosing a better attitude. He tells us we can be our own life coach; we can choose to be grateful which he says has turned his life around.

Yesterday I saw a young woman with tattoos on her face. I wondered what was going on in her life that made her choose to mark her face permanently. Life is hard, and it is much harder for some than others. But, perhaps we all have the choice to choose our attitude. Part of Mom’s health and longevity I attribute to her attitude. Years ago when I phoned Mom her opening line to whoever was on the phone was, “What can you tell me that is good.”

The star quilt she made now covers the big comfy chair and brings Mom into my studio. I’m sure she was well into her nineties when she made it. When you have the attitude that you will live till you die, be grateful for what you have, and look on the bright side you have a better life even when the times you lived through were hard as parts of Mom’s life were. She lived through the thirties, the war years, widowhood with two children and a brand new baby, some of us think we are going through tough times but most of us don’t know what really tough times are, and if we are lucky we never will.

Are we counting our blessings, and naming them one by one?

A positive attitude may not solve all our problems but that is the only option we have if we want to get out of problems. Subodh Gupta

A strong positive attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug. Patricia Neal

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought. Joel Osteen

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you to everyone that reads my books, and a special thank you to those that leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.